Lillian’s Paradise

137-9 Wallace Street (demolished)

Lillian Benford Lumpkin lived life on her own terms. She moved to New Haven from Opelika, Alabama, during the Great Migration with a dream of creating a new life as a financially independent businesswoman. 

Lumpkin’s career as an entrepreneur began on Dixwell Avenue, where African-Americans had created a bustling business community. There, she opened a successful soul food restaurant which tragically burned to the ground in the early 1950s. Her vision was never deterred, just expanded. 

After purchasing a building on the corner of Wallace and Cain Streets, just off Grand Avenue, Lumpkin focused all of her energy on manifesting her long-held dream, Lillian’s Paradise. She managed to borrow money for building renovations and to acquire a liquor license. Resourceful as ever, she found the support she needed and in October 1946 realized her dream. A newspaper announcement in the African-American press about the grand opening of Lillian’s Paradise impatiently celebrated the launch “at last!” and invited patrons to visit the “finest restaurant and supper club in the East.”   

Lillian’s Paradise featured fine food (including lobster and oysters), a wide selection of “choice wines,” and top-notch entertainment. It seated 200 patrons, and Lillian packed the club every weekend. Wild Man Steve was the master of ceremonies and Buck Halstead led a house orchestra. Lillian hosted banquets, church events, fraternal events, and other festivities. She personally drove to New York to review the finest entertainers and bring them to New Haven, where she often housed them overnight in apartments above the restaurant. 

Jazz greats from Boston and New York found their way to Lillian’s Paradise. Lillian’s daughter, Shirley Lumpkin Gray, remembers performances by Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Errol Garner, and Johnny Ray. Legendary pianist Horace Silver and jazz promoter George Wein both paid tribute to Lillian’s Paradise in their memoirs. 

In its heyday Lillian’s Paradise was dubbed “Connecticut’s Smartest Night Club” and listed in the Green Book, a road guide for African-American motorists that let people of color know the club was a safe place to visit, though it was also enjoyed by patrons of all races and nationalities. 

Lillian Benford Lumpkin dreamed of seeing her name in lights. She achieved that goal long before her death at age 89.

Text sources: Interview with Mrs. Shirley Lumpkin Gray by Carolyn Baker; “Monterey Memories,” New Haven Independent, 2 Feb. 2018, Link; Unsung Heroes: The Music of Jazz in New Haven, Rebecca Abbott, W. Frank Mitchell. 2001. (video) Link.

Live band at Lillian’s Paradise. Photos courtesy Mrs. Shirley Lumpkin Gray and the collection of Lucille Mapp (by way of Frank Mitchell). 


Carolyn Baker, Co-President, Greater New Haven African-American Historical Society, describes the site at the Ribbon Cutting for the tour, May 9, 2022.